MTP, Original Content

[Username17]

I'm splitting this off, because I think it's an interesting discussion and I don't want it being lost in the embarrassing and incoherent spam of a bunch of 4rries who don't even know what the difference between an adjective and a noun is.

I think you could create adventure design guidelines that would only improve people's games with the advantage over a video game being that you get unlimited amounts of original content. The only strength of an TTRPG over a CRPG is the original content, not the flexibility to not have rules and play MTP.

I partially agree with this. I agree that original content is the driving impetus to play table top RPGs. I agree that "not having rules" is not advantageous when creating new content. But I genuinely don't agree that MTP isn't an advantage of table top RPGs. It totally is. MTP is a way to generate new content, after all. Not the only way, not even necessarily the best way, but certainly one of the ways to generate new content.

One of the major advantages for table top over video games is that you can generate new content even when you don't have explicit rules. The advantage isn't that you have sections that you don't have rules for (as many "rules light" fappers claim), the advantage is merely that if you hit a section that doesn't have rules then the game keeps going instead of hitting a blue screen error and kicking you back to the operating system. Another major advantage is that "modding" is much easier, in that by announcing the changes you want to make, they are already made. But I think there is general agreement on that point and we don't have to belabor it.

But the method we generate new content has to be either procedural or imaginative or some combination of the two. When the characters go to some undefined wilderness area on the map, we actually do have some guidelines to do some procedural generation work. We can look at the map and see that it seems kind of swampy, we have lists of what kinds of fantasy monsters live in swamps, we have level appropriate encounter guidelines, and so on. It's not pure MTP, but it still has to be assisted by MTP, because those procedural guidelines aren't anywhere near tight enough to generate a whole battlefield and populate it with a Lizardfolk patrol (or a Hydra ambush, or a Troll shakedown, or a Will-o-Wisp trap or whatever). And the fact that it can be assisted by MTP is a good thing.

The Cool to Suck Ratio for MTP is devastating. Entire sections of the game like illusions in s.X DnD can't be used without a conversation with the DM lasting at least a half hour, most of the time resulting in that DM MTPing up a version of illusions that nerfs it into uselessness.

Illusions in D&D are completely incoherent. That's not the same thing as being something that merely draws upon MTP for assistance. For fuck's sake it says you can make an illusion of "a creature" and then gives an example of "four Orcs playing cards". That's contradictory. Illusions are allowed saves if "studied", but the length or type of that study is undefined. Illusions are automagically bypassed if there is "proof" that they are fake, but the old standby of "put your hand through it" is given as an example of something that both does and does not count.

The problem here isn't that there's MTP. In fact, MTP is great for Illusions. Without MTP, the game would simply stop the moment we got to that part of the rules, because it has multiple divide by zero errors. Yes, the game would be better if the rules were clear and unambiguous instead of directly and repeatedly contradictory, but MTP isn't causing any problems here. It's allowing us to proceed in a situation where terrible rules writing would otherwise make it impossible.

I point out that Shadowrun Illusions are basically exactly as open ended, just as magical teaparty about what you can make. But no one has a problem with Trid Phantasm that requires hour long arguments to get to an unsatisfactory conclusion, because what rules there are are simple and straight forward. You have an area, you control the vertical and the horizontal in that area, and everyone who sees it gets a single resistance test. Done and done. No unparseable bits about what you can or cannot put in the area, no unparseable bits about when or how resistance tests are made, it's all straightforward. And it works. And it's still highly MTP driven, and that's OK.

Having no guidelines at all is bad. Having contradictory guidelines is worse. But being able to extrapolate from guidelines using MTP to generate new content is fucking awesome.

-Username17

[Red_Rob]

Agree on all points basically.

A common complaint from people on RPG sites about rules is that "you can't have a rule for everything". Well, you don't need a rule for everything, you just need rules that cover common and general occurences that you can then apply to situations as they arise. This allows you to introduce situations that aren't specifically listed in the rules and apply the rules that players and the DM already understand to them without the DM having to make a "ruling" that goes against everything the players have seen before.

Now, this is a lot more onerous than simply making a 4e power (No this firebolt targets a creature, you can't shoot the door) and requires a lot more thinking about how systems interact, but the freedom it allows in play is a major plus.

[Username17]

A common complaint from people on RPG sites about rules is that "you can't have a rule for everything". Well, you don't need a rule for everything, you just need rules that cover common and general occurences that you can then apply to situations as they arise.

Indeed, having "a rule for everything" isn't even a goal. The system is better when it has less rules that cover more situations. The Image/Phantasm rules in D&D and Shadowrun are a classic example. The Shadowrun version is much shorter because they have a lot less rules going on. And yet, if I go up to an illusionary wall in Shadowrun and poke it with a stick, I know exactly what happens, while in D&D I don't. Is poking it with a stick "observing" it? Does that constitute "proof" that the wall isn't real? I have no fucking idea, and neither does anyone else. For fuck's sake, Skip Williams did a Four Part Series trying to explain the ins and outs of D&D Illusions, and it still doesn't make any fucking sense. Because D&D has too many rules governing how illusions work, and that leads to too many contradictions. Shadowrun's short rule list makes answering an on-the-fly illusion question easy and deterministic.

Interestingly, Shadowrun's Illusions actually require less MTP in order to function. They still require MTP, because the reactions of subhuman primate tribes to illusionary toasters is always going to require some make believe and guess work. But the D&D version requires MTP just to mind caulk all the rules conflicts. And that's a pain in the ass.

So I'd even agree with K's limited point that we need simpler rules and less MTP. But only in that we should strive to eliminate the rules holes and rules conflicts that require MTP just to keep divide by zero errors from terminating the game. Actually eliminating MTP from the game shouldn't be a goal and wouldn't be a benefit.

-Username17

[Libertad]

Because it's relevant, I'm reposting this here:

MTP is also the worst part of the hobby by an overwhelming amount. For every "and then the DM decided that my spell has this cool unexpected effect," there are thirty stories of "and then the DM decided that my spell wouldn't work in that situation because of some bullshit he came up with." You hear the old "yeh, and my Evasion should have saved me but the DM decided that I can't because it's not magic." You get weird unexpected things where you auto-lose because the DM decided that rocks fall and everyone dies.

The Cool to Suck Ratio for MTP is devastating. Entire sections of the game like illusions in s.X DnD can't be used without a conversation with the DM lasting at least a half hour, most of the time resulting in that DM MTPing up a version of illusions that nerfs it into uselessness.

That's not MTP; that's the DM changing the rules on the spot because "noncasters can't have nice things."

It's not in the same league as "I'm making shit up where there are no rules." It's "I'm changing the rules right now just because."

I'd also like to say that "Magical Tea Party" has been used as an insult on The Gaming Den numerous times, so having a thread saying that it's "awesome in some respects" appears contradictory to outsiders. And I'm in agreement with this part: it is contradictory when the common usage is a bad thing.

[Username17]

I'd also like to say that "Magical Tea Party" has been used as an insult on The Gaming Den numerous times, so having a thread saying that it's "awesome in some respects" appears contradictory to outsiders. And I'm in agreement with this part: it is contradictory when the common usage is a bad thing.

MTP is usually used in the context of "that's just MTP". Magical Teaparty is the first RPG element. It's free. And we can use it to mind caulk anything. That's not revolutionary, and the results aren't predictable.

So when someone says they have a cool system of handling something, and that "system" is MTP, it would not be unusual at all for someone on the Den to say "That's just MTP." And even though tone doesn't carry over text on the interwebs terribly well, I want to assure you that the sentence would be absolutely dripping with scorn. But it wouldn't be dismissive and contemptuous because MTP is inherently bad, it would be such because the delivered product would be literally the equal of what a five year old could do.

If a five year old does a stick figure in crayon, it is charming and goes on the fridge. If a grown man does one and asks why I don't want it on my fridge, I don't think that needs a reasoned response. It deserves a dismissive and cruel comment. And I am sure that it would get one.

But what MTP is, fundamentally, is worse than every single other rule in your game. At least, it fucking better be. Because MTP is free and takes up zero space. So absolutely any rule you write that isn't better than MTP is something you should cut in editing. Which doesn't mean MTP is "bad" or that it doesn't have a place. It just means that every single rule you include in your game is supposed to be better than MTP.

-Username17

[DSMatticus]

Also: it is basically impossible to write rules governing every situation that will arise in play in any game that tries to allow relatively fine-grained action resolution with an open-ended list of actions. The amount of rules you could possibly write in your lifetime is very small relative to the pool of actions you need to cover. The amount of rules you should bother writing at all is smaller still, because people have to actually be able to learn, find, and use those rules in a book, digital or physical. MTP will eventually happen as an inevitability. That doesn't mean MTP is better than having a specific rule in play (as Frank has pointed out, if the rules are any good it shouldn't be), it just means that at some point MTP is preferable to additional rules in design.

[crasskris]

MTP tends to be most useful (or least awful, depending on viewpoint) when a ruleset covers the basics well; that is one of the things I tend to look first when reading rules these days. If the simulation of basic tasks is done well, on-the-fly additions can at least use a strong foundation to extrapolate from.

Telekinesis, for example, is easier to implement in mid-play if you have rules for feats of strength (lifting, carrying, throwing) and moving (jumping, possibly levitation or flight). It is also easier to balance; telling players that the wand of telekinesis they've found lifts at a +7 strength and moves with at-will flight (no momentum, change direction at-will) at speed 3 helps to put it into contrast with the party barbarian and any flight experience the characters/players already have.

[K]

I think you could create adventure design guidelines that would only improve people's games with the advantage over a video game being that you get unlimited amounts of original content. The only strength of an TTRPG over a CRPG is the original content, not the flexibility to not have rules and play MTP.

I partially agree with this. I agree that original content is the driving impetus to play table top RPGs. I agree that "not having rules" is not advantageous when creating new content. But I genuinely don't agree that MTP isn't an advantage of table top RPGs. It totally is. MTP is a way to generate new content, after all. Not the only way, not even necessarily the best way, but certainly one of the ways to generate new content.

One of the major advantages for table top over video games is that you can generate new content even when you don't have explicit rules. The advantage isn't that you have sections that you don't have rules for (as many "rules light" fappers claim), the advantage is merely that if you hit a section that doesn't have rules then the game keeps going instead of hitting a blue screen error and kicking you back to the operating system. Another major advantage is that "modding" is much easier, in that by announcing the changes you want to make, they are already made. But I think there is general agreement on that point and we don't have to belabor it.

But the method we generate new content has to be either procedural or imaginative or some combination of the two. When the characters go to some undefined wilderness area on the map, we actually do have some guidelines to do some procedural generation work. We can look at the map and see that it seems kind of swampy, we have lists of what kinds of fantasy monsters live in swamps, we have level appropriate encounter guidelines, and so on. It's not pure MTP, but it still has to be assisted by MTP, because those procedural guidelines aren't anywhere near tight enough to generate a whole battlefield and populate it with a Lizardfolk patrol (or a Hydra ambush, or a Troll shakedown, or a Will-o-Wisp trap or whatever). And the fact that it can be assisted by MTP is a good thing.

It's not MTP to make choices.

So when someone says "hey, this is a level 8 Swamp Exploration adventure and we need to fill it with 400 points of swamp monsters and 200 points of Swamp encounters," it's not MTP to choose lizard men instead of yuan-ti. It's just a choice.

It's not even MTP to offer the PCs a Swamp Exploration adventure instead of a Magguffin Run adventure that features a swamp. You still choose off the list.

It's not even MTP to customize the monsters into characters with unique traits and personalities. That's just RP.

MTP in adventure design is the thing where you want to do a Swamp Exploration adventure without any guidelines at all. Being MTP and you have no rules, chances are great that you fail somewhere in the basic design. Maybe you forget to have any Swamp encounters like sinking in mud trap and the PCs don't feel like traveling in the Swamp is different from the forest or an open road. Maybe you put too many monsters in and the PCs flee before ever getting to the ruins you spent hours designing, and then they never go back and your time was wasted. Maybe you use a bunch of wildly-inappropriate monsters in the swamp and PCs feel like you are playing adventure mad-libs.

Rules for generating content makes that content generation faster and better. MTPing up adventures fails for most DMs, or at least fails to meet minimum levels of competence more complicated than "go to Point A and kill some monsters."

The problem here isn't that there's MTP. In fact, MTP is great for Illusions. Without MTP, the game would simply stop the moment we got to that part of the rules, because it has multiple divide by zero errors. Yes, the game would be better if the rules were clear and unambiguous instead of directly and repeatedly contradictory, but MTP isn't causing any problems here. It's allowing us to proceed in a situation where terrible rules writing would otherwise make it impossible.

I point out that Shadowrun Illusions are basically exactly as open ended, just as magical teaparty about what you can make. But no one has a problem with Trid Phantasm that requires hour long arguments to get to an unsatisfactory conclusion, because what rules there are are simple and straight forward. You have an area, you control the vertical and the horizontal in that area, and everyone who sees it gets a single resistance test. Done and done. No unparseable bits about what you can or cannot put in the area, no unparseable bits about when or how resistance tests are made, it's all straightforward. And it works. And it's still highly MTP driven, and that's OK.

Having no guidelines at all is bad. Having contradictory guidelines is worse. But being able to extrapolate from guidelines using MTP to generate new content is fucking awesome.

MTP makes illusions unplayable, and Shadowrun is no exception with it's slightly better save mechanic.

Every important aspect is answered by MTP. Can I make an illusion so scary that it ends the encounter? MTP. Can I make something so attractive that is makes someone walk forward, or ignores people sneaking behind them? MTP. Can I make a confusing illusion? MTP. Can I trap mindless creatures in an illusion box? MTP. Can I alter the perspective so that it looks like a lot more stuff is happening from a single person's perspective? MTP. Can I make enemies attack illusions of me who are standing next to me? MTP.

The list goes on and on and on, but I'll stop here and give you the punchline that always comes up: "MTP."

There are no rules, no way to answer any of those questions. Some DMs are going to say "yes" to some of those questions and illusions are going to be crazy powerful, and others are going to say "no" and illusions are going to be a useless RP-tool with no game effect. Some are going to say "yes" some of the time and "no" other times, making each casting an exercise in "does the DM like me today?" Some are going to only say "yes" when it's described really creatively, making illusions powerful in the hands of creative players and useless for everyone else.

That's the effect of MTP guidelines....mass confusion.

That's why you get gamers who write up Wizards with no illusions. They don't know what they fucking do and neither does the DM, so better to avoid it entirely and just use something substandard but dependable like evocations because you don't have to have an argument over damage, something with actual rules.

Guidelines for MTP fail, hard, almost every time. Illusion needs actual rules, not guidelines for MTP that aren't going to actually improve the situation or answer any question definitively.

[crasskris]

Can I make an illusion so scary that it ends the encounter? MTP.

There are no rules, no way to answer any of those questions.

As a rule, Illusionist's Intimidation roll (it's what he can think of to be intimidating - 'what the caster has seen before'), plus any social Intimidation modifiers the illusion qualifies for.
As a guideline, resistance probably should be modified by the probability of the modifiers, but that is up to the MC.

Can I make a confusing illusion? MTP

There is actual Confusion spell in the Illusion group, so yes. If using a Trid Phantasm, one should probably use the Con rules (and Illusionist's Con skill), again modified by any modifier the illusion can provide without being unreasonable.

SR4.

So yes, there are rules to govern these problems, and thus pure MTP is rarely needed.

[OgreBattle]

I figure the problem of D&D is the spells came BEFORE rules for non-magical ways to interact with the world and NPCs.

There were spells for illusions and charming before there were rules for spotting a tiger in the jungle and lying to people.

While with shadowrun the spells came after a base skill system was created for sensory deception and social deception.

[K]

Can I make an illusion so scary that it ends the encounter? MTP.

There are no rules, no way to answer any of those questions.

As a rule, Illusionist's Intimidation roll (it's what he can think of to be intimidating - 'what the caster has seen before'), plus any social Intimidation modifiers the illusion qualifies for.
As a guideline, resistance probably should be modified by the probability of the modifiers, but that is up to the MC.

Can I make a confusing illusion? MTP

There is actual Confusion spell in the Illusion group, so yes. If using a Trid Phantasm, one should probably use the Con rules (and Illusionist's Con skill), again modified by any modifier the illusion can provide without being unreasonable.

SR4.

So yes, there are rules to govern these problems, and thus pure MTP is rarely needed.

Writing up some mechanics and arbitrarily assigning some modifiers doesn't prove anything about MTP. All it proves is that there is giant MTP hole in the rules that potentially could be filled by a real mechanic if someone wrote them.

[Omegonthesane]

MTP makes illusions unplayable, and Shadowrun is no exception with it's slightly better save mechanic.

Every important aspect is answered by MTP. Can I make an illusion so scary that it ends the encounter? MTP. Can I make something so attractive that is makes someone walk forward, or ignores people sneaking behind them? MTP. Can I make a confusing illusion? MTP. Can I trap mindless creatures in an illusion box? MTP. Can I alter the perspective so that it looks like a lot more stuff is happening from a single person's perspective? MTP. Can I make enemies attack illusions of me who are standing next to me? MTP.

So it's not enough to have control over what illusion the monsters see, you have to be able to directly and specifically control how they react to it?

...That being said, the scary and confusing illusions need answers as they involve triggering involuntary reactions. The illusion box is a "yes" if it fools touch and a "no" otherwise, as the mindless creature probably doesn't care about any stimulus that doesn't directly affect it or induce default behaviour other than "wander".

Could you post the actual rule in question that you feel doesn't cover the attractive illusion, the perspective screw, or the creation of illusionary threats for the enemy to consider splitting their fire between?

[Blade]

Shadowrun illusions get a bit complicated when you start taking into account touch illusions, for example, if I make a realistic illusory wall and you don't resist it what happens if you try to run through it?

[Omegonthesane]

Shadowrun illusions get a bit complicated when you start taking into account touch illusions, for example, if I make a realistic illusory wall and you don't resist it what happens if you try to run through it?

Presumably, you go through that time, and get a metagaming penalty if you don't have a habit of running into walls that appeared in a way that could possibly be an illusion just in case it's an illusion you didn't intrinsically resist. If it looks like a wall and it quacks like a wall, and you run into it anyway, that had better be the default behaviour when you know OOC it's actually a wall.

[Chamomile]

In a world where illusionary walls exist, it might not be such a bad idea to try running through any wall that is magically conjured in front of you. There are ways to run into a wall such that it won't really hurt if it's real, but momentum will carry you through if it isn't.

[Omegonthesane]

Or indeed lean on the wall such that if it's there, it's there, and if it's not you can catch yourself before you fall over. I just had this image of someone running into a wall that had been illusion'd up somewhere where they couldn't see the actual conjuration, or illusion'd up such that it looked like a mundane blast door closing.

[virgil]

Every important aspect is answered by MTP. Can I make an illusion so scary that it ends the encounter? MTP. Can I make something so attractive that is makes someone walk forward, or ignores people sneaking behind them? MTP. Can I make a confusing illusion? MTP. Can I trap mindless creatures in an illusion box? MTP. Can I alter the perspective so that it looks like a lot more stuff is happening from a single person's perspective? MTP. Can I make enemies attack illusions of me who are standing next to me? MTP.

If the reaction to an illusion's existence does this, it brings to question the point of ANY roleplaying game for something besides combat. Not a single storytelling game exists with social rules that aren't based on heavy MTP.

[nockermensch]

Every important aspect is answered by MTP. Can I make an illusion so scary that it ends the encounter? MTP. Can I make something so attractive that is makes someone walk forward, or ignores people sneaking behind them? MTP. Can I make a confusing illusion? MTP. Can I trap mindless creatures in an illusion box? MTP. Can I alter the perspective so that it looks like a lot more stuff is happening from a single person's perspective? MTP. Can I make enemies attack illusions of me who are standing next to me? MTP.

If the reaction to an illusion's existence does this, it brings to question the point of ANY roleplaying game for something besides combat. Not a single storytelling game exists with social rules that aren't based on heavy MTP.

We clearly need to wait until science develops a deterministic theory of how mind works before we try our hands at RPGs again.

[OgreBattle]

DnD has Cause Fear and Charm as separate spells, and not both of them lumped together as a single vague 'Cause a Feel' spell. Even hideous laughter gets to be its own thing

Maybe the solution is 'scary image' and 'sexy girl image' are just made separate spells. Otherwise your asking for illusions to be a whole ton of wizard utility spells rolled into one slot.

[virgil]

Maybe the solution is 'scary image' and 'sexy girl image' are just made separate spells. Otherwise your asking for illusions to be a whole ton of wizard utility spells rolled into one slot.

And now this is penned in many a wizard's spellbook

[Username17]

I take issue with your list of Illusion Effects and MTP rant, I mean rules for morale exist in SR and even 2nd edition AD&D. They happen to not exist in 3rd edition, and it is another reason among many that 3rd edition D&D has terribad illusion rules. But it's a distraction. Here's the core point:

It's not MTP to make choices.

Yes it is. Yes it fucking is. Your character has red hair instead of blond? MTP. You meet the scribe while you are catching lunch at the hospoda instead of having to go to his house? MTP. Every time you make a choice, that's magical teaparty.

Sometimes the rules or theme will constrain your choices. And that is often a good thing. But whenever you declare anything by fiant, that's MTP.

Basically what you just did is to declare every choice you like to be "not MTP", and every choice you dislike to be MTP. And then you circularly declared yourself to be in opposition to all MTP. But that's horseshit. Because the choices you like are also MTP. The MTP is both good and bad.

-Username17

[nockermensch]

I take issue with your list of Illusion Effects and MTP rant, I mean rules for morale exist in SR and even 2nd edition AD&D. They happen to not exist in 3rd edition, and it is another reason among many that 3rd edition D&D has terribad illusion rules. But it's a distraction. Here's the core point:

It's not MTP to make choices.

Yes it is. Yes it fucking is. Your character has red hair instead of blond? MTP. You meet the scribe while you are catching lunch at the hospoda instead of having to go to his house? MTP. Every time you make a choice, that's magical teaparty.

*drops the monocle*

Whoa, dude.

[K]

I take issue with your list of Illusion Effects and MTP rant, I mean rules for morale exist in SR and even 2nd edition AD&D. They happen to not exist in 3rd edition, and it is another reason among many that 3rd edition D&D has terribad illusion rules. But it's a distraction.

I've never seen anyone use SR morale rules or the 2e morale rules. EVER. In decades of play.

Bringing them up is the real distraction, especially since they cover exactly one of the many examples I offered and countless I didn't.

That being said, the many other flaws in illusions are not a distraction and are instead the fucking point: the effect of illusions is entirely made up on the spot by the DM in the absence of rules, and that's terrible and why people don't use them.

Making up effects on the spot makes the game unplayable as a game. It makes it perfectly playable as an improv acting exercise or MTP play session, but not a game.

Here's the core point:

It's not MTP to make choices.

Yes it is. Yes it fucking is. Your character has red hair instead of blond? MTP. You meet the scribe while you are catching lunch at the hospoda instead of having to go to his house? MTP. Every time you make a choice, that's magical teaparty.

Sometimes the rules or theme will constrain your choices. And that is often a good thing. But whenever you declare anything by fiant, that's MTP.

Basically what you just did is to declare every choice you like to be "not MTP", and every choice you dislike to be MTP. And then you circularly declared yourself to be in opposition to all MTP. But that's horseshit. Because the choices you like are also MTP. The MTP is both good and bad.

Stop talking crazy.

MTP is not making choices. You are not MTPing the shit out of Settlers of Catan when you ask for wheat for bricks, but you would be if you suddenly declared that there was a Communist regime change and started grabbing everyone's wheat cards.

And that's because the rules for Settlers of Catan doesn't say shit about government changes. You acted outside of the rules and excused it with a self-serving narrative.

That's MTP. That's the shit that makes games unplayable and makes illusions non-functional to most of the playerbase.

[K]

Every important aspect is answered by MTP. Can I make an illusion so scary that it ends the encounter? MTP. Can I make something so attractive that is makes someone walk forward, or ignores people sneaking behind them? MTP. Can I make a confusing illusion? MTP. Can I trap mindless creatures in an illusion box? MTP. Can I alter the perspective so that it looks like a lot more stuff is happening from a single person's perspective? MTP. Can I make enemies attack illusions of me who are standing next to me? MTP.

If the reaction to an illusion's existence does this, it brings to question the point of ANY roleplaying game for something besides combat. Not a single storytelling game exists with social rules that aren't based on heavy MTP.

The question is whether writing social rules is impossible.

Games that have been written so far are based on table-top wargames or based on games that were based on tabletop wargames. This means that even asking the question "do we need a comprehensive social mini-game" is not even a question that has been asked because no one has seriously tried, or they decided it wouldn't have a place if they did try. Social interaction was not considered important at all and it still isn't.

That doesn't mean that it can't be done. Games designers have made lots of games that I though wouldn't be fun, but they found the right design and it worked.

But no one is even trying. Forums aren't filling up with people offering their social min-games, but you can't swing a dead cat without hitting fifty new combat mini-games.

[Hicks]

To counter your anecdotal evidence: I use 2e morale and reaction rolls. Seriously, at my last gaming session on Saturday.